Fair Game

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘We can go change and do some more touristy stuff.’

He was reading her through their bond. Hiding the warm fuzziesthat gave her behind a distrustful look, A

Charles looked, heaved a long sigh.‘I should have known we wouldn’t get out of here without doing the imitation trolley car cemetery tour complete with costumed ghouls.’

‘Not in my territory,’ snarled someone behind her.

As it seemed an unlikely response to Charles’s pseudo-reluctant agreement, A

In rows along the outdoor marketplace were dozens of dark green wagons, resembling nothing so much as the covered wagons in her father’s beloved old Western movies. The wagons served as kiosks where people sold T-shirts, purses, or other small portable goods. Standing on the top of the one nearest them was a young-looking black man, fine-boned and slight, watching them – watching Charles, anyway – with yellow eyes as the strings of beading supplies hanging from hooks all over the wagon swayed unsteadily.

From photos, she recognized him as Isaac Owens, the Alpha of the Olde Towne Pack– Boston being the Olde Towne, complete with the final ‘e’s. He wasn’t in the habit of ru

‘You’re attracting attention,’ said Charles in a conversational tone designed not to carry to human ears. Isaac, being a werewolf, would hear him just fine despite being a dozen yards away. ‘Do you really want that?’

‘I’m out. They know who I am.’ Projecting his voice to anyone who cared to listen – and people were starting to pause what they were doing to listen – Isaac raised his chin aggressively. ‘What about you?’

Charles shrugged.‘In, out, it doesn’t matter.’ He leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘No more does your declaration. You lost control of the situation that brings me here when you chose not to report the deaths in your territory. You have no say over what I do or don’t do.’

‘We didn’t kill anyone,’ Isaac declared, and pointed at Charles. ‘And you will have to go through me to take any of my pack.’

Isaac was new, A

The woman who was working the kiosk– her body bestrewn with hand-beaded jewelry and tattoos in a bewildering mixture of color and texture – was backing slowly away, trying not to draw attention to herself. Not a bad strategy for someone caught between predators, though less glittery jewelry might have helped – another reason for A

‘If no laws were broken, no one is at risk,’ said Charles, and Isaac sneered.

‘Get off the stupid wagon before that poor lady calls nine-one-one,’ A

The local Alpha looked at her for the first time and frowned. His nostrils flared as he tried to catch her scent– which would have been impossible to filter from the rest of the people nearby except that she smelled like an Omega wolf.

After a rather long pause, Isaac shrugged his shoulders to loosen the muscles and walked off the end of the wagon– a good nine-or ten-foot drop. He landed with flexed knees and turned to the proprietor of the shop, who’d stopped when A

‘My apologies,’ he told her. ‘I didn’t mean to scareyou.’ He smiled and handed her a card. ‘A friend of mine runs a pub – stop by and have a meal on us.’

The woman took the card with a rather shaky hand that steadied as Isaac’s smile warmed. She glanced down and her eyebrows rose. ‘I’ve eaten there. Good fish and chips.’

‘I think so, too,’ he said, gave her a wink, and strolled over to where A

‘Nice PR,’ A

He studied her, ignoring Charles’s brooding presence. ‘Ayah, nah,’ he said, exaggerating his Boston accent into incomprehensible nasal sounds before he dropped most of it to continue more clearly. ‘What in the hell are you?’

‘Good to meet you, too,’ A

Isaac gri

‘She ismine,’ said Charles. His aggressive answer didn’t show up in his voice, which was low and calm. ‘We have a meeting scheduled tomorrow, with you and your pack. There was no need for this

’ He glanced around. People were still watching them, but they were pretending not to. ‘Theater,’ he finished.

‘This is Boston, hoss.’ Isaac bent his knees and squatted, putting his head on a level with theirs. ‘That’s “thee-ah-tah.” We’re all about theater here.’ He pronounced the second ‘theater’ just as Charles had. He wasn’t native to Boston, she remembered. She thought he was fromMichigan or Pe

A

‘And aren’t you one to burst everyone’s posturing?’ Isaac’s dark eyes considered her. Then, in a more down-to-earth tone, he looked at Charles and said, ‘As a matter of fact, she’s right.’ Then his face and his voice went very, very serious. ‘I meant what I said. To get to my wolves, you’ll have to go over my dead body.’

‘If you do your job, he’ll never have to do his.’ Bitterness made A

‘She make all of your words,kemosabe?’ Isaac asked Charles.

Charles raised his eyebrows in an exaggerated fashion and pointed his chin at A

Speaking of bad ma

‘Where’s our card for a free meal?’ A

Charles murmured,‘Before you depart. Sally forth. Close enough.’

A

‘Charles is not here to enforce justice, at least not on you or yours.’ She nodded at Isaac. ‘We were coming to you to ask for information. There are dead werewolves and the FBI and police apparently don’t have anything but bodies. We were sent here to help them. We were coming to ask you the questions the FBI probably already have in the hopes you could answer differently for us. How were our people taken and killed? Where were they taken from?’